In this week’s podcast episode, I discuss how best to declutter and organize your closet.

I discuss capsule wardrobes, how you can purge too much, and how you can have a variety in your everyday clothing while loving and wearing everything in your closet!

I started this year with three episodes about the importance of decluttering, organizing, and increasing productivity.

In those episodes, I explained that when you reduce the amount of "stuff" you own and get it all organized, your productivity will increase. This will give you LOTS of extra time to focus on what you were meant to do in life.

When I was in high school, my mother taught me some important lessons on how and what to buy when it came to clothes.

Here are the tips she shared with me that I still find helpful today:

"Cost Per Wearing" Analysis – Evaluate the cost of your clothing by how many times you think you will wear it. A $150 coat is worth the investment if you wear it 100 times, bringing the cost of the coat down to $1.50 per wear. Compared to a $15 "bargain" top that you only actually wore once, meaning the cost per wear is $15. The $150 coat was a far more economical investment.

Buy In Outfits – Focus on purchasing items that are interchangeable. By focusing on a specific color scheme or style in mind, it will save you time and stress because everything will match.

What to keep?

Now that you have some ideas for how to shop for new clothes, what should you do with all of your existing clothes that are sitting in your closet?

It’s time for you to decide what needs to stay and what needs to go.

Just recently, I went through my own closet to decide what to keep and what to get rid of.

Here are the rules that helped me when decluttering my own clothes.

Keep clothes that fit you – We all have that one item of clothing we are keeping until we can lose 5 pounds and it will fit once again. It NEEDS to go! You should only keep clothes that fit you and make you feel great. Don’t keep clothes that make you feel like you should change to be able to wear them.

Keep items that match each other – If it doesn’t match anything else in your wardrobe so you have nothing to wear it with, it needs to go. It doesn’t matter how cute or comfortable those shoes are if you are never going to wear them.

No extra purses – Most women do the same with purses… we usually stick to one primary purse yet hold onto our old purses, telling ourselves we might one day need them. This ALMOST NEVER happens! Try to keep your everyday purse, as well as a particular favorite, and get rid of the rest. You really DON’T need them all.

Types of wardrobes to consider...

If you’re looking to try something entirely new when it comes to organizing your wardrobe, there are a couple different options out there for minimizing your closet.

Capsule wardrobe – This type of wardrobe limits you to a certain number of items per capsule (not including your under garments). You set the number to what you would like and you limit your wardrobe capsule to that number. Have capsules for work, seasons, or specific occasions, it’s up to you. You can keep the rest of your clothes, but it takes the stress out of planning your day-to-day outfits.

Uniform wardrobe – Many successful executives such as Steve Jobs, Barrack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg have utilized the uniform wardrobe. Clothes in this kind of wardrobe are all similar and interchangeable. For example, my wardrobe consists of mostly jeans, sweaters, and tops. Jeans match pretty much everything so it is easy for me to buy a large variety of tops to interchange with them.

As parents, our wardrobes often fall to the wayside as we spend all of our time and money making sure that our kids (who are constantly growing) are getting the clothes that they need.

I’m here to tell you that it’s IMPORTANT to update your wardrobe, too. Instead of buying the occasional, random item for yourself on a whim, make a point of finding yourself something nice that matches your wardrobe.

It’s essential for you to look and feel good about yourself, too.

Now that I have shared my ideas for decluttering your wardrobe, I challenge ALL of you to walk into your closet and come out with 15 items that you no longer need or want.

This is a great first step towards getting your closet decluttered.

By following my tips and getting your closet organized, you’ll be able to get dressed quicker, feel better, and get on with living your best life.

It’s delivered to you by email. Every day at 5am EST, you will receive checklists via email.

You should print a copy for everyone in your house who is taking part in the blitz. For example, I’ll print off three... one for me and one for each of my two children. Since my kids are teenagers, I’ll try and convince them to do the checklist themselves.

Don’t worry, the checklists are not lists of things to buy. In fact, my Back To School Blitz does not involve buying anything at all!

Instead, it’s all about decluttering, culling, and making inventories of what we have in our house so that in August we can go ahead and buy exactly what we need. This will stop you from over or under buying things.

So here’s what it involves:

Monday: Clothing – Going through your closet and figuring out what you need, what needs altered, etc.

Tuesday: Set up a command center – A back to school Sunday Basket™ that you will set up next week and continue to use thereafter. It will help you take note of the various things that need to be done before going back to school (i.e., supply lists, school uniform, car pool arrangements, etc.).

Wednesday: Supplies – A supply list for your home or your home-based business. It’s the best time of the year to stock up on things like pens, binders, highlighters, etc.

Thursday: Personal grooming – Look at what you have and what you need. Schedule manicures, haircuts, other treatments, etc.

Friday: What does it take to get this family out the door? – Backpacks, lunches, purses, car, etc.

It’s a rite of passage almost no one will escape: the difficult, emotional journey of downsizing your or your aging parents' home.

Here, nationally syndicated home columnist Marni Jameson sensitively guides readers through the process, from opening that first closet, to sorting through a lifetime's worth of possessions, to selling the homestead itself. Using her own personal journey as a basis, she helps you figure out a strategy and create a mindset to accomplish the task quickly, respectfully, rewardingly—and, in the best of situations, even memorably. Throughout, she combines her been-there experience with insights from national experts—antiques appraisers, garage-sale gurus, professional organizers, and psychologists—to offer practical wisdom and heartwarming advice so you know with certainty what to keep, toss or sell.

For this week’s podcast episode, I timed how long it took me to complete ALL of my laundry.

Over the course of a weekend, I used a stopwatch and I timed from when I began a laundry task to when I completed it. By doing this, I was able to get an accurate idea of how long completing all of my household laundry really took.

My Findings

The truth is, the actual tasks involved in doing laundry didn’t take up too much time.

Every time I went into the laundry room to complete a task, I was usually only in there for about 5-8 minutes. So it really wasn’t taking me very long.

I discovered I was able to do 9 loads of laundry in only 61 minutes.

BUT... and this is a big but... the 61 minutes were spread over 3 days. So I pretty much felt like I spent 3 days in my laundry room!

So what I came to learn is that, while the tasks don’t take very long, laundry can seem so much more time consuming than it really is because it occupies so many of our thoughts as we are doing it.

I found I was always thinking about things like when the current load will be complete, whether I have gathered everything for the next load, where are the hangers, and so on.

My Laundry Tips

Fortunately, there are ways to save yourself both time and stress when it comes to your laundry.

Here are my top tips for making laundry easier:

Sort by weight – Instead of separating your laundry into loads by color, try separating them by how much each item weighs. Heavier items take longer to dry and lighter items take less time to dry. This will save you drying time on those little loads.

Difficult load first – We all have that load of laundry that is just more difficult than the rest. Do your most difficult load of laundry first and this will make the rest of your loads less stressful.

Multiple days of laundry – By spreading your laundry time throughout the week and doing some of the easier loads on weekdays (towels for example), you will save yourself time and stress on the weekends.

Set a timer – Every time you start a load of laundry, start a timer on your phone. By setting the timer for 45-50 minutes, it will help prevent you from forgetting about the laundry and losing track of time.

Of course, hiring someone else to do the laundry would be the ultimate time saver! This might not be an option for everyone, but it’s definitely something to consider.

There may be no perfect solution to doing laundry, but I would LOVE to hear your suggestions for making laundry quicker and easier.

Whether you're keeping your kid's room clean or you have assigned them this very important task, it is essential to keep their room organized.

I dive deep into everything kids' clothes on the podcast this week.

This is a topic I've mentioned before. In podcast episodes #103 Bedroom Organization For Kids and #104 Clothing Organization For Kids, I discussed how to organize your bedroom and, more specifically, your clothing. It would be a great idea to listen to both of those episodes first since I have taken those principles and built upon them in this episode.

I like to view your kid’s rooms as their own mini apartments inside of your house.

In this episode, I focused on keeping kid’s clothing organized. This sometimes means sorting through both clean and dirty clothes strewn around their rooms, but there are some ways to help avoid this.

Hang everything

Getting into the habit of hanging and folding clean clothes right after they leave the laundry room can cut down on the amount of clothes left all over their room.

I know for a lot of kids (particularly if they have ADHD) it’s VERY easy to get overwhelmed, especially with how many items can be found in their closet.

One organizing method that I have found to be helpful with my kids has been to hang up all of their shirts so that they can see what they have.

2. Put hampers in each child's room.

Another helpful practice to follow is designating a location for all the dirty laundry and actually putting it there! Ideally, this would be IN a laundry basket, but just having the dirty clothes all in one place will make a difference.

Once the clothes are separated, it’s time to organize them in a way that helps your kids!

3. Next steps...

Now obviously, not everyone has the closet space to hang up all of their clothes. So what do you do if your child has a dresser?

I have created something that really helps with organizing clothes in drawers! It's a FREE set of printable icons that can be laminated and placed on the drawers of your child’s dresser to help them remember what is inside.

There are four different sets of icons designed for young boys and girls, as well as teenage boys and girls. You can mix and match the icons that you like.

These kid clothing icons will help your kids identify what is inside of drawers and bins, keeping them more organized.

In the podcast, I shared how I put these on a client’s closet drawers using the Command Hook double-sided adhesive strips. Did you know you can buy just the strips?!

The final tips I talk about in this episode are all about the hangers you use in your kid’s closet. It seems like a small detail, but using hangers that are all the same size and shape can make all the difference right from the start.

Once you have those matching hangers, get into the habit of taking out extra hangers and bringing them down to the laundry room for the next batch of clean clothes.

When I am organizing, I like to keep one white trash bag hanging in my closet for those hangers I know I am going to throw away. I also keep a black trash bag hanging in my closet for clothes that are going to be donated to Goodwill.

Of course, all of these tips for organizing your kid’s clothing can also be applied to your own clothes, too.

Welcome to the Bermuda triangle of months! I never know where my July goes…

This is the month when I reflect on the past 11 months, delete and consolidate goals, and dream and plan for a productive fall.

This fall, I will be attending Biz Chix LIVE in Irvine, California on October 18-20. Let me know if you will be there!

In today’s podcast, I shared three items I am working on for this fall.

The Productivity Planner.

This planner/book/workbook is meeting and exceeding all my expectations. It will be available for pre-order on August 4th for currently enrolled 100 Day Home Organization Program members. And will be included in the fall 100 Day Home Organization Program Registration.

I realized when I recorded podcast #166 All About The Sunday Basket™ Workshops, I was so excited about the workshops that I didn’t really share how it would benefit you to be a licensed Sunday Basket™ Provider.